to fill or (intransitively) be full of · verb, niphal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
before
בְּֽלֹאbe.lo'-
H3808
not (the simple or abs. negation) · preposition + negative particle
time
י֭וֹמוֹyo.mo
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
branch
וְ֝כִפָּת֗וֹve.khi.pa.To
H3712
a leaf of a palmtree · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
green
רַעֲנָֽנָהra.'a.Na.nah
H7488
verdant · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Ecclesiastes 7:17 Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?
Psalms 55:23 But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will…
Job 22:16 Which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood:
Hosea 9:16 Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit o…
Job 8:16-19 He is green before the sun, and his branch shooteth forth in his garden.
Job 14:7-9 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
Job 18:16-17 His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.
Psalms 52:5-8 God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land o…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 15:17–end
Eliphaz, having reproved Job for his answers, here comes to maintain his own thesis, upon which he built his censure of Job. His opinion is that those who are wicked are certainly miserable, whence he would infer that those who are miserable are certainly wicked, and that therefore Job was so. Observe,
I. His solemn preface to this discourse, in which he bespeaks Job's attention, which he had little reason to expect, he having given so little heed to and put so little value upon what Job had said (Job 15:17): "I will show thee that which is worth hearing, and not reason, as thou dost, with unprofitable talk." Thus apt are men, when they condemn the reasonings of others, to commend their own.…
Literally, "it (the tree to which he is compared, Job 15:30, or else his life) shall not be filled up in its time"; that is, "he shall be ended before his time."
shall not be green--image from a withered tree; the childless extinction of the wicked.
John Gill on Job 15:32
It shall be accomplished before his time, Either the recompence or reward of his trusting vanity, in vain persons or things, the punishment of such a trust, the sorrows and troubles following upon it; these shall come upon the wicked man "before his day" (f), as it may be rendered; before the day of his death, even before his old age; before the evil days come in a course of nature, and those years in which he has no pleasure: or his life, and the days of his life, "shall be filled up" (g); or be at an end before his time; not before the time fixed in the decree and purpose of God, Job 14:5; but before his own time, that he and his friends thought he might have lived, and as his healthful co…
31 Let him not trust in evil-he is deceived,
For evil shall be his possession.
32 His day is not yet, then it is accomplished,
And his palm-branch loseth its freshness.
33 He teareth off as a vine his young grapes,
And He casteth down as an olive-tree his flower.
34 The company of the hypocrite is rigid,
And fire consumeth the tents of bribery.
35 They conceive sorrow and bring forth iniquity,
And their inward part worketh self-deceit.
אל does not merely introduce a declaration respecting the future (Luther: he will not continue, which moreover must have been expressed by the Niph.), but is admonitory: may he only not trust in vanity (Munach here instead of Dech, according to the rule of tra…
The Church Fathers
"He shall be cut off before the hour, and perish," before he can hope.
Ver. 32. Before his days are fulfilled he shall perish, and his hands shall wither. The days foreordained to each individual by the Divine Prescience can neither be increased nor lessened, except it happen that they be so foreknown as either to be longer if they be accompanied with the most perfect works, or shorter with the most wicked, just as Hezekiah obtained increase of days by the bestowing of tears, and as it is written concerning the wicked, Death meets the undisciplined. Yet oftentimes the wicked man, though in the secret foreknowledge of God no protracted periods of life may be predestined him, himself, forasmuch as he desires to live after the flesh, sets length of days before his imagination. And because he cannot attain to that time that he looks forward to, he, as it were, 'perishes before his days are fulfilled.' Which same we may likewise understand in another sense also. For very commonly we see persons that both lead wicked lives, and attain to the very extreme of old age. How then is it said, Before his days are fulfilled, he shall perish; when in the case of particular persons we often see, that their limbs already fail from age, and yet their passions do not cease to carry out their wickedness? MORAL INTERPRETATION For there are some, who after a lost way of life turn back to themselves, and their conscience accusing them, forsake their froward ways, alter their doings, withstand their old wickedness, flee earthly courses, and pursue heavenly aims, but before they be firmly rooted in those holy aims, from deadness of mind they return to the things which they began to pass sentence on, and fall back to the evil habits which they had determined to eschew. For whereas it often happens that for the profit of many, even holy men bow their necks to external actions, and are busied with the governance of a people, the weak seeing this, and, from their former pride still by them, seeking to follow their example, set themselves in outward ways of action; but in proportion as they do not come thereto well imbued with the things of the Spirit, they execute them in a carnal manner. For except the heart be first confirmed in heavenly desires by long application and a continued conversation, when it is poured back again for the executing of things exterior, it is rooted out from all its standing in good practice. Whence too it is rightly said of this…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
The burning sun (literally The flame) might be the scorching sun or a flame of judgment from God (15:34, see Num 16:31-35; Ps 106:17-18; Ezek 20:47). • The breath of God might be a desert wind or a more direct theophany (a manifestation of God’s presence) that caused the burning of Job 15:34.
Rashi on Job 15:32
Before his time his recompense will be complete [and will cease] from growing and prospering anymore, like (Gen. 50:3), “were fulfilled for him,” i.e., they were completed.
and his branches His bent-over branches. All branches of a tree resemble a dome.
